My Second Place in London (a retrospective)

I had very little money when we were kicked out of this previous shit place in Bethnal Green so I didnt want to travel far for the next place in an effort to save on taxi fare.

Fortunately, I quickly found a place nearby. Unfortunately, it was also horrendous. I was still in London, after all.

This was a ground floor apartment sharing a room with a guy from Brazil. And two other Brazilian guys shared an adjacent room. And a Brazilian guy and his Latvian girlfriend shared a third room. This is the guy who held the lease, so he paid no rent (presumably) and had the nicest room.

I quickly discovered that the guy I was sharing the room with was a drug addict. He would be gone for days at a time (which is great) but when he came back he behaved in an absolutely insane manner. He was also in some mariachi band or something and considered himself to be taking part in the crazy rock and roll lifestyle.

We each had a set of dressers. His was new and nice and everything worked. Mine had a drawer missing, another drawer that didnt open, and three others that only sort of worked.

He also had a tv which he had positioned so that only he could see it. He actually expected us to watch our own separate televisions. So thats what would happen. I would be watching my tv, then he would come in and turn his tv on. He'd be watching something else and turn it up so loud that it would drown out the sound from my tv.

He also started coming in at 3 or 4 am and then watching cartoons. I should point out that we also had a little living room area that he could have watched television in at any time. But he watched in the room.

We also shared a closet and he would always push my clothes as far to the side as possible. And the only time he talked to me was to complain about getting the tv box out of the room. But there was no room to store it because he used all the storage areas.

He was an absolute mentalist drug addict and I eventually went to the leaseholder about this. He agreed that his behavior is insane and that he didn't know he would act like this. But he then said that everybody has to move anyway because he will not be renewing the lease as the landlord wants more money.

The place itself was a step above the first place I stayed in but thats saying very little.

So I stayed there three weeks. Maybe a month. And I paid £55 ($110)/week inclusive of bills for the honor.